The Golden Hour

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Tip: In the first pages of the book, reference is made to the 1890 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and it serves as a thematic anchor to Elfriede's life. However, his Together, they all work on projects and their friendship grows (and with Sebastian, it’s clear that there may be more than just friendship there). With a less experienced author, a book of this scale could have been 600+ pages long, but the book was paced and plotted perfectly - leaving just enough left to think about long after. Be aware that while the Bahamian years of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor during WWII are a clever and glitzy premise, they actually play secondary roles within the novel.

Williams mixes those ingredients with spies, swindles, love affairs—plus a dash of racial animosity—and the result is a zesty romantic cocktail. The Golden Hour is a tale of wartime courage, espionage, dashed dreams, renewed hopes, and the tightest bonds of love. Oh how I adore this author, her gorgeous writing, compulsively readable plots, stunning covers, and I wondered, “Can she do it again? Elfriede plays Chopin in the evenings, and the soothing music and the soothing conversations lead to a close friendship with Wilfred that quickly evolves into something more.What it's about: I recommend reading the synopsis because it is too hard for me to explain this book in just a few sentences! Each falls in love with an Englishman named Thorpe; the father is Elfriede’s love and his son is Lulu’s. And the tense changes, flashbacks, missing information for the times between told in piecemeal asides- all of that didn't help. Just when you are expecting a story like The Canning Season, where hurting kids find healing amid folksy, rural surroundings, a bizarre time-travel adventure breaks out.

Beatriz Williams is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of The Golden Hour, The Summer Wives, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and several other works of historical fiction, including three novels in collaboration with fellow bestselling authors Karen White and Lauren Willig. But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess’s social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands’ political and financial affairs, she uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies a complex—and even treasonous—reality.or so it seems, right up until close to the end, when you don't want it to end so you slow down to enjoy. Part of their lives involve politics, war, betrayal and even a murder, none of which either woman sought or was intimately entangled with.

Using her journalistic skills and social etiquette, Lulu succeeds in befriending the duchess, Wallis Simpson. The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams is one of those books that takes a long time to read, but one that you want to savor forever. An LGBTQ+ relationship is very subtly hinted at between a couple characters, as if to allow those readers so inclined to pretend it doesn't exist.Lulu Randolph comes to Nassau, where the Duke has been sent to get him out of England and Europe, to do a cover story for Metropolitan Magazine. Newly-widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in the Bahamas to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. Williams slips back and forth from location to location, from 1943 to 1941 and farther back to the turn of the century, raising the suspense bar higher and higher as we dive deeper into the lives of two memorable female characters. I appreciated this book as an adult, but I can definitely see this being enjoyed by a younger audience, and a great way to have some dialogue with younger people about trauma and the power of art to keep us grounded.